


Free Vessel

by numbika



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Short & Sweet, pure vessel needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29737254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numbika/pseuds/numbika
Summary: After the Knight with the help of the Godseeker summoned Shadelord and defeated the Absolute Radiance, wiping its influence from the world, a tormented being awakens inside the Temple of the Black Egg.
Relationships: The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	Free Vessel

The pain. The red-hot searing pain were everywhere.

They tried to block it, tried to hold back the tide but it was a futile endeavour. It filled them, it poured out of them no matter how hard they concentrated, no matter how hard they tried to employ the mental tactics they were taught.

They were not effective, but it wasn’t their fault. It was their fault it was all their fault. They screamed, but the voice wasn’t theirs, it was the light's.

It raged, it raged harder than ever before, it broke through every feeble barrier they had left, and then…Just vanished. Without any warning. Without any discernible reason. The pain was still there, but it wasn’t the suffering of open flame anymore, just the aching burn it left behind after itself.

There was a sound, barely audible inside their head where the screaming was still echoing. It was a sort of dull thud, something hitting the stone floor, and maybe a faint clink. Metal. It was there before, another metal clink, before the thud, now that they wrecked their tortured brain, they could discern it from the rapidly fading echo.

The burning was abating too, giving away to a cool chill across their body. Body, yes, they once had a body. They might still have one.

They tried to move their hands, but only one of the limbs was responding. It was clutching something as if their life depended on it. Something metallic. They let it go, and felt their numb fingers fight against the movement before finally giving in. The object rolled out of their grasp. They pushed against the floor…Yes, they were laying on the floor, face down probably. They managed to roll on their back and opened their eyes.

They were blind. Their eyes were burned out by the intense Radiance. No, not, that. It was just very dark. Their eyes needed to adjust to the light inside…which was barely any.

There was a pale glow, coming from sigils on the walls. A few remaining specks of orange, sickly light on plants, they were withering rapidly into grey husks. Chains hung from the ceiling, they seemed old and broken. They remembered them new and glowing with pale power.

They remembered.

Inside their head the last slivers of the burning light gave way to a sense of self, never to return. They raised their hands in front of their face to look at them. There was only one now. It seemed tortured and emaciated. It probably was. They slowly opened and closed their palm, before glancing at the missing other arm. It ended just above their elbow.

The skin was grey and cracked, the end was almost white, it looked like the rest of it just withered off during the…How long was it?

They remembered distinct time periods but had no idea how long any of them lasted. At first, they were able to contain the light, cage it up inside their mind. But it slowly, began to grasp at things inside them. It always did with their victims. But they were supposed to be devoid of that, they were supposed to be pure.

They weren’t.

There were memories, feelings in them that they were not supposed to have.

The warm feeling of pride from a father, the distant memory of a mother, a sense of duty distilled into their soul.

They were tainted from the beginning. And the searing light clawed at these things until it broken trough. Then came the fight, the constant battle with that Radiant painful shine, trying to hold it back, trying to close it back into its cage.

It never worked, they became weaker and weaker, and at last, they broke. Any resistance they put up after that was token at best, their mind was filled with pain, and they were transformed into it as the burning filled every part of them.

It was probably then, struggling against their chains in pure agony, when they somehow cut off the flow of blood to their arm, and it withered away.

They haven’t even noticed. The pain coming from their hand must have been nothing compared to the one coming from their mind.

But now, now it was the bodies time to finally relay all the feeling it had accumulated.

They felt their whole body ache from spending untold years in constraints. They reached out for something, anything to use as a crutch, to push themself up. Their fingers found the thing they were clutching earlier.

A nail.

A weapon.

It glowed slightly as they pulled it closer to themself.

Why did they give this to them? Why did they have a weapon when the temple was supposed to be secured by the dreamers? Why did their father deemed important that they would learn how to handle a nail, if they truly believed that their plan would succeed?

Maybe they were destined to fail…

They pushed the point of the nail into the black stones underneath them. It protested with a metallic whine, as they pushed themself up. Their legs buckled up under them almost instantly. They have not been used to support their body for a long time.

They tried it again, this time pushing much more weight against the nail. They managed to stay upright this time, although it was a perilous endeavor. They leaned forward and pulled out the nail from its place jabbing it into the ground again.

Slowly, but surely.

They began to make their way out. They stopped in front of the giant door which locked them in. It was open now. Either somebody killed the dreamers whose responsibility was to maintain the seal, or they woke up, now that it was no longer necessary to do so. They staggered out of the doorway.

The outside was different from how they remembered it. So much so that they began to question if their recollection was somehow wrong. The walls were cracked, and unrepaired. From the edges, withered vines dangled like the limbs of a corpse. There were still light, pale orbs of luminance clung to the ceiling in small candelabras.

They leaned forward and stabbed their nail into the ground to places their weight on it. A length of chain slithered out from under their torn cloak and fell to the ground with a clink. It was wrapped around their body for so long, they never even noticed they carried it with them. But now, dislodged by their jerky motion towards the outside, it finally slid off.

There was a figure in front of them.

A small bug clad in red cloak, carrying a long nail. No. A needle. Weapon of the spiders of Deepnest.

Why was this bug here? Its posture was definitely an aggressive one.

The mask, the mask on its head. It seemed, familiar to them. As if they had seen it in the past.

Before they could properly formulate the idea, the small bug leapt to attack. Their body responded automatically. Years of honed reflexes activated and jerked their tired body top the right path. Their nail blocked the needle aimed at them even though the motion must have seemed sluggish to their attacker. The small bug left backwards fearing a return strike that never came. The motion, once again, seemed hauntingly familiar.

Finally, it clicked into place.

_Hornet._

A daughter of their father from a different mother. Their blood-kin. They staggered backwards, glaring at the bug. Yes, she was small, but much bigger than the last time they seen her.

The time, the time that must have passed in that wretched place…

Hornet leapt again, a pattern they were familiar with. They taught her that. Not by choice, but they remembered the little bug eagerly watch them train and mimic their movements with a stick, or a candle she managed to get hold of.

After a while she began to get a hold of it, and they started to change their own training methods, so it could better be copied by her.

Why did they do that? Why did they created another weakness in themself to be exploited later by the light? Perhaps it was inevitable.

What lives, changes.

If something lives and gains experiences, it cannot remain empty anymore.

They leaned away from the piercing slash and let go of their nail. Their hand moved fast, surprising even themself, and caught hornets grip on her needle. She began to pull, trying to tear away her hand, but their grip was tight. They were nothing if not enduring after all this time.

The younger bug struggled for a couple of minutes, then stopped, and glanced up into her captor's eye.

"You…" she said with growing realization. "You are, yourself again."

Themself?

They wasn’t even sure what they were before the light burned most of it away.

A tool? A puppet? Something more they should not have been?

Now?

They had no idea where to even began to find it out who or what they was. But they also had no way of communicating these finer points to Hornet, so instead, they just nodded. They weren't the burning pain of the light, and that was what really mattered.

The small bug suddenly moved closer not trying to get away, and instead, hugged them with her free arm. They in their surprise, let slip her other one too.

Hornet was hugging them fully now.

The feeling was new, but not unpleasant. It was full of, companionship. Warmth but without the pain. Definitely not unpleasant.

They moved their hand, and awkwardly placed it on the small bugs back trying to mimic the gesture.

New things.

They will have the opportunity to learn them.


End file.
